1st Edition

Toward a Hermeneutic Theory of Social Practices Between Existential Analytic and Social Theory

By Dimitri Ginev Copyright 2018
    198 Pages
    by Routledge

    198 Pages
    by Routledge

    Recent methodological debates have shown that practice theory can either be developed by combining and slightly extending established theoretical concepts of inter-subjectivity, social normativity, collective behavior, interaction between agents and environment, habits, learning, collective intentionality, and human agency; or by following a strategy that promotes the quest for completely autonomous concepts. In the latter case, one defends a thesis of irreducibility.



    Toward a Hermeneutic Theory of Social Practices advocates this thesis by approaching the interrelational dynamic of social practices in terms of existential analytic. Indeed, this insightful volume outlines a methodology of the double hermeneutics that allows the study of the entanglement of agential plans, beliefs, and intentions with configured practices; while also demonstrating how interrelated social practices with which agency is entangled articulate cultural forms of life.



    Suggesting a framework for studying the cultural forms of life within the scope of practice theory, this book will appeal to postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers interested in fields such as Social Theory, Philosophy of Social Science, and Research Methods for Social and Behavioral Sciences.

    Introduction





    Chapter One: THE IRREDUCIBILITY THESIS









    1. Holism without Essentialism






    2. Social Practices and the Human Body






    3. The "Hand" and the Readiness-to-hand






    Chapter Two: THE FACTICITY OF PRACTICES









    1. Cultural Forms of Life Disclosed and Articulated Within Interrelated Practices






    2. Facticity, Ethnomethodology, and Radical Reflexivity






    Chapter Three: CONSTRUCTING PRACTICE THEORY THROUGH DOUBLE



    HERMENEUTICS









    1. Defending Irreducibility via Double Hermeneutics






    2. Empirical Ontologies and the Double Hermeneutics






    3. The Frames of Meaning and the Fusion of Horizons






    4. The Integral Circle of Interpretation






    Chapter Four: THE TRANS-SUBJECTIVITY OF SOCIAL PRACTICES









    1. Exemplifying Trans-subjectivity






    2. Chronotopes of Configured Practices






    3. Entangled Agency with Configured Practices






    4. The Interplay of Practices and Possibilities






    Chapter Five: THE DIALOGICAL SELF AS THROWN PROJECTION IN



    PRACTICES









    1. The Dialogical Proliferation of I-positions






    2. Narrating the Self and Positioning






    3. I-Positions and Existential Possibilities






    4. Integrity through Re-positioning






    Epilogue



    Index

    Biography

    Dimitri Ginev is Professor for Continental Philosophy and Hermeneutic Philosophy of Culture at the University of Sofia, Bulgaria